Years ago Bill gates wrote a book "The Road Ahead". It came with an interactive CD that besides the book's text had links to pictures, biographies, etc. It never caught on. This looks like a similar and better implementation of the same idea.

That was an idea ahead of it's time. The technology available at the time screwed him. The same book now could come with QR codes to slick out extra information on cell phones or anything with internet access and a camera.

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can see the negative posts coming but an app that then reads a publisher's titles looks like a winner to me. The Washington Post just announced a $1.99 app for reading their news content with a years subscription. With newspapers in trouble and the younger generation wanting audio, video, etc. This looks like the future.

Newspapers are in trouble because they can't compete by bringing yesterday's news. They compounded that by starting a stupid precedent of giving everything away on websites and then realizing that people weren't getting subscriptions. Now it's too late.

Regarding video, I think the younger generation didn't demand video, every media outlet started pimping video and audio streams/downloads when internet users increased in the AOL days as a way to differentiate themselves by their novelty/zazz factor.

I'm somewhat annoyed that everything has to be an app now. Why does it have to be an app? That immediately reduces your potential buyers and makes you beholden to another company on the hardware and software side. Why not make a broad-compatibility website and let everyone with internet access become a potential client?